


Spread

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24780253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Just a bit of late night cooking fluff.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Kudos: 12





	Spread

There were very few ways to lose oneself in the midst of a war and most were predictable. Klinger’s stomach lining was too delicate to tolerate heavy drinking and he struggled to separate his heart from the rest of him when it came to the pleasures of the flesh. Books and movies were flimsy shields to hold up against a daytime reality that included disposing of amputated limbs and burning linen too blood saturated to save. The sewing helped some and sleep was best if he could get into it quickly enough to bypass the nightmares acting as door wardens.

Today’s diversion was cooking... or the army equivalent of it, anyway. The surgeons were slated to be on call in the next day or so and would be unable to set aside their scalpels for meals. The solution? A nurse or corpsmen held a sandwich up to the doctor’s mouth, lowered his mask, then raised it again so that he didn’t have to scrub a second time. Klinger’s job was to prepare dozens of peanut butter sandwiches.

Charles found him determinedly at work and stopped to watch. Klinger was making the world’s (or, at least, the country’s) prettiest peanut butter sandwiches. The peanut butter was precisely the right thickness between factory white slices that could have only been sent from the States. And the peanut butter was being expertly smoothed across each slice! Each stroke of the knife was erased, even though the starving surgeons would neither know nor care. Charles wondered if the man was dawdling- dragging out a mundane task to avoid one less pleasant - but decided that wasn’t the case. Klinger just made pretty sandwiches. Why not? He wore pretty earrings.

Clearing his throat, he conducted the business he had come for, asking Klinger about a box of erythromycin that had seemingly gone astray en route, but his eyes kept straying back to the piece of bread Klinger was working on.

“You make a very pretty sandwich, Corporal,” he said before leaving.

Klinger brightened at the compliment. “I make ‘em with love, sir.”

***

When the deluge came and they stood in blood and the nurses held straws or sandwiches to their lips, Charles was the only one who failed to complain about the peanut butter.

***

Afterward, after sleeping and showering and checking on patients in post op, Charles found himself back in the camp kitchen, rummaging. Dinner had been wretched fare - no surprise - and now his stomach was rumbling. And damned if that rumble wasn’t crying out for white bread and peanut butter... Lebanese style.

Unfortunately, the resident sandwich-maker was less than overjoyed about being awakened. “You want me to do what, sir?” He’d been deep asleep; surely he’d just misheard this latest demand from on high.

“Just show me how to do it.”

Klinger retreated under the covers. They couldn’t court martial you for a culinary offense, could they?

“Klinger, come out of there!”

Groaning, blinking owlishly, the Corporal reluctantly oozed from the bed. Charles was amused to see that he was dressed in a fairly short silk nightgown - the delicate stuff making his knees and elbows appear almost coltish and adolescent. Such attire was probably plenty warm in the cot Klinger kept piled with blankets, but it was no match for the Korean night. He stopped the Corporal at the door. “Wait. You’ll freeze.” Undoing the buttons on his coat, he made a cloak of it around Klinger’s shoulders.

Chivalry was great and all, in Klinger’s book, but sleep was better. Still, it was better than he usually got so he accepted it and trailed along beside the Major. In the deserted (but rarely dessert-filled) kitchen, he yawningly assembled the tools of late night snack making. Charles watched as if in an operating theater. 

“Who taught you to do that?” he asked as the knife was scraped over the lid, everything left neat. 

Klinger looked at him as if he was wondering whether his superior officer didn’t need a three day pass to let some of the bats out of his belfry. “Nobody. I mostly take care of myself. Always have. My parents worked all kinds of shifts so I learned to make do.” He winked. “I can boil water, too. Think some GI’ll take me home at the end of this?” 

“I hadn’t realized you were looking for a, ah,” 

Klinger gave him a look that said “Honestly? Don’t be dense.” “Who isn’t looking, Major?” 

“Ah, me, for one.” 

Klinger waved him off, pushing the sandwich with its sinfully smooth center over to him. “That’s just coz you’re  _ here.  _ It’s no secret we’re not exactly your kind of people, sir.” That it wasn’t a secret precisely because Charles announced it so often, he didn’t bother to say. 

Charles stopped chewing for a moment.  _ His kind of people  _ certainly wouldn’t have gotten up in the middle of the night to make him a sandwich. They might call a servant to do so… but probably only if he was sick. Klinger had not only gotten up, he was watching him with gentle, friendly eyes, despite the late hour. 

“I hope that whoever it is that does take you home is worthy of you, Maxwell. You’re quite a catch.” 

When his mouth dropped open, Charles kept eating; he’d never tasted anything better. 

***

Having won praise for sandwich making, Klinger scrounged supplies. After bad nights in the OR, Charles began to find sandwiches on his bunk or his desk. While some were typical peanut butter and jam combinations, others had been dressed up with honey or marshmallows, chocolate chips or dried fruit. The golden raisins were an especially nice surprise. 

In time, the haughty Major found that it wasn’t merely the food that he wanted, but the companionship of the young man who had been working to soothe his nerves by distracting his taste buds. He began to share his evenings with the Corporal. Watching Klinger sew or teaching him chess kept him sane. 

It didn’t take him long to realize just why that was the case. 

Cutting his sandwich in two, he found Klinger and held out half. Surprised but happy, Klinger took it. When they’d eaten, staying quiet, almost shy, Charles held out his hand; when Klinger reached back, he enfolded those fingers in his. 

“Maxwell, are you yet looking for a GI to take you home?” 

Klinger nodded, wondering if this was real. 

“I’m no soldier, darling, as you know. But would you consider allowing me to apply for the privilege?” 

“Of course, Major. Just one question though.”

Charles expected something about his family or Boston or maybe the wild wardrobe Klinger had so lovingly assembled. “Yes?” 

_ “What was in that peanut butter _ ?!”

End! 


End file.
